Surrendering Your Pet

Elmbrook Humane Society (EBHS) understands that sometimes owners can no longer care for their pets for various reasons. Before deciding to surrender your pet to a shelter, please consider the following options:

Re-homing your pet: Talk to family, friends and co-workers to see if anyone is able to take ownership of your pet. If you adopted from our organization, please note that we accept all animals adopted back into our organization. If you would like to re-home a pet adopted from our organization, please contact our Shelter Operations Manager to coordinate. If we are unable to accept your pet through our surrender program, please ask us about our re-homing program. Please note: if choosing to charge a fee to re-home your pet, the fee cannot exceed our adoption fees.

Pet friendly housing: If you are planning on moving, look into housing that is pet friendly. Many apartment complexes and landlords do allow pets. It may be a bit more challenging to find housing but it will be worth it when your furry friend can move with you!

Make an appointment with a veterinarian: If your pet is having medical problems seek help from a local veterinarian. Your pet may have an easily treatable illness or infection.

Seek help from a trainer: If your pet is having behavioral issues, seek help from a certified trainer. Many local shelters have a certified trainer on staff who would be more than happy to help. At EBHS, we have resources to help with many basic and behavior concerns. We also have a Certified Professional Dog Trainer on staff who offers private consultations. Visit the training page on our website to learn more.

Place an ad: If you aren’t able to find a family member or friend to take your pet, consider placing an ad in your local paper. This way you have more control over who takes over ownership of your pet.

Breed Rescue: There are many local breed specific rescues for both dogs and cats. If you have a special breed of dog or cat you can search online (example: German Shepherd rescue of Wisconsin). A great resource to assist you with dog, cat, and other rescues in Wisconsin is Wisconsin Dog Rescue.

Admission Process: Because EBHS is a smaller shelter, appointments are required to surrender a pet. Due to space and resources, not every animal will be admitted. If you would like to surrender your pet to EBHS, please fill out the appropriate surrender form below. Once completed, it will be sent to the Shelter Operations Manager for consideration. The Shelter Operations Manager will reply within a week as to whether or not your pet can be admitted. Please keep in mind that EBHS does consider all requests for pet surrender; however, preference is first given to animals adopted from EBHS and animals from municipalities that we provide animal control services to which include: City of Brookfield, Town of Brookfield, Village of Chenequa, Elm Grove, and Nashotah. EBHS does charge a minimal surrender fee to help cover costs of medical treatment and care while your pet is at EBHS. Fees will be discussed if your pet is able to be admitted.

Complete the appropriate application below; save the file to your computer, open the file and complete, save file with your last name and surrender application (example: Smith Surrender Application), attach a photo of your pet, and send to surrender@ebhs.org, fax at 262-782-3356, or mail to 20950 Enterprise Avenue, Brookfield, WI 53045.